


Six Decades, Reflected

by bossxtweed



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Other, The Vault (Doctor Who), the working title for this was 'missy falling apart in the vault'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28373628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bossxtweed/pseuds/bossxtweed
Summary: Around the week of Saxon's election in 2007, Missy lays in bed in the Vault, reflecting on the past six decades of her imprisonment.
Relationships: Thoschei - Relationship, Twelfth Doctor/Missy
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	Six Decades, Reflected

In the Vault, Missy lays in her bed, holding a half-empty bottle of wine in one hand, its contents sloshing onto the mattress as she peruses a magazine. _‘Unlock your inner self,’_ the cover says, with a young, thin, scantily clad woman staring directly into the camera; on the sides are notes about losing weight, and sticking to diets, and all sorts of other things intended to target young women’s insecurities.

She flips a page to see two young models, wearing only bikinis, discussing----

She flips the page again and sighs.

 _How to tell if he’s into you,_ the article’s cover reads, though the font is blurry. _Number One: how often do you spend time with one another? A) once a month; B) two-three times a month; C) two-three times a_ _ **week;**_ _D) four+ times a week; E) who said we’re ever apart?_

“I should get a pen,” Missy says, and she turns suddenly, causing the world around her to _spin._ She shuts her eyes, takes several deep breaths, and sets the bottle down next to her bed.

Not even _five_ bottles in and she feels _awful._

Inhale.

The room _reeks_ of ginger and sugar and she swallows back a wave of nausea. _C’mon,_ she tells herself, taking several more deep, careful breaths. _Ye cannae fall apart_ _ **now—**_ _it’s only been….what?_

 **1947,** in the wake of the War, the Doctor began teaching physics at St. Luke’s University with Nardole as his eccentric assistant and Missy locked away in the Vault. Few people saw her in those early days---back then, the Doctor would let her out for short walks now and then, and he introduced her as----Missy shakes her head again, feeling another wave of nausea at the memories.

 _Sixty years,_ she thinks, running a hand through her messy curls.

 **1957:** the Doctor had made a cake, thinking it important that they celebrate Missy working to become a better person, and she’d screamed and thrown it in Nardole’s face, demanding that the two of them leave her alone. Besides, wasn’t it nearly time for---oh, what was that show called? The one with the housewife and the put-upon husband who always seemed upset at his wife’s antics? Anyways, the show was ending that week---if her magazines were accurate---and _the Doctor_ seemed to like it.

Missy? She could not _stand_ the series!

 **1967:** Missy fell in love with _Catwoman,_ portrayed then by _Julie Newmar._ The way she went about, so sure of herself and so, _so_ beautiful, with that sultry voice and those brown eyes and those _curves…._ more than that, however, something about the way in which Catwoman plowed forward with plot after plot, always attempting to lure Batman over to _her_ side, resonated with Missy, and the brief moment in “Bat’s Kow-Tow” where they almost kissed…. all of the Doctor’s companions were the Robins, getting in the way whenever the _adults_ flirted, and she and the Doctor…

That anniversary passed without a single word exchanged between the pair of them, and Missy told herself she preferred it that way.

 **1977:** The Doctor once claimed that ‘Disco’ was his middle name and this was the decade to prove it: he wore a flashy, TARDIS blue blazer with high waisted jeans and went out with Nardole to the local discotheque, where they danced with some _very_ confused students and Nardole drank _too much liquor,_ confining him to a full **week’s** bed rest.

Once, on a cold, windy night, the Doctor took Missy dancing. For a brief moment she forgot about the Vault and their animosity and spent the evening staring at the Doctor with wide, wistful eyes, drinking in the moments where he **smiled** at her. She would do _anything_ to see him smile at her.

That night, while his students were distracted with each other, Missy and the Doctor snuck away, sheltered beneath an alcove, and he wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her close. She stared up at him through dark glasses---the lights of the club, and the flashing of the music, combined to aggravate her migraine---and _she_ was the one who inched closer, closer, closer, until their lips touched and she practically _melted_ into him.

The last time they kissed had been in 1956---shortly after the Doctor published his first academic work _and_ received a promotion at the University.

His office felt… _odd._ For all appearances, it was just like any other office on the campus, with portraits of loved ones on the desk and wall-length bookcases filling the room, their shelves filled with books on every subject imaginable, as well as popular books and magazines---an alarming amount of which had yet to be published.

The TARDIS set the place apart. She stood in one corner of the room, towering over everything, and Missy stared at her warily as she sat on the sofa, her feet kicked onto one edge. One day, perhaps, she could stun Nardole as he brought her food and sneak out, down the corridor, past the gaggle of students whose gazes rested solely on one another, and into the Doctor’s office, where she would once again claim his ship as her own, and maybe…

“I couldn’t have done this without you, Missy,” the Doctor held up a hardcover copy of his monograph. “All those nights you stayed up late with me, working out all the kinks in my theories… all the days I thought it was pointless and I should just _give up,_ but **you** encouraged me to keep going, because it wasn’t just a brilliant theory by human standards, it did something to _help_ them…”

He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

She blinked.

The Doctor pulled back, held up a hand, and said, “Missy, I---I’m sorry if that was… was…”

She reached forward, wrapped a hand round his head, and drew him close, kissing him hungrily. He tasted of raspberries and ginger---and, somehow, faintly of smoke---he did, occasionally, take up cigarettes, but it was moreso one of _her_ vices---and she paused after a moment to lean her cheek against his.

“Missy, I--”

She raised one hand to his lips, shushing him. “No. Don’t speak---you’ll ruin the moment.”

Flushed, he shifted, pressing his forehead against hers.

 **1987:** The Cold War was drawing to a close.

On St. Luke’s campus, the students were in a frenzy, though not _because_ of the war---though that _was_ part of the issue---but because there were _computers_ in the campus library now, ones that _students_ could use, after years of campaigning for them and being told there simply weren’t the funds.

Dressed in her nicest purple skirt and pale blue blouse, Missy had taken the time to fix her hair and apply makeup before she and the Doctor went to the library, where he was holding rather unconventional office hours---blasting music, reading popular magazines, and chewing loudly on _bubblegum._ Despite his outlandish behavior, the librarians _loved_ him. He could disarm each of them with a smile, and several thought they had a _chance_ with him---why else would he lean in to whisper something which sounded very important but proved to be utter nonsense, then _wink_ before walking away?

“What are you reading?” he asked, nudging her gently with an elbow.

She looked up from her novel, held it up to show the cover, and absently replied, “die Verwandlung.”

“In the original German?”

She nodded. Yes, sometimes she enjoyed reading things in German, or Russian, or Japanese, or any language _other_ than English—she even had a small collection of books tucked away in the Vault, written in Scots Gaelic, along with ones written in Gallifreyan.

“It’s a good story, isn’t it?”

She smiled a pained smile and merely nodded.

He tilted his head back, nodded, and turned as a pair of students approached, demanding his attention; the last examination had proven _too_ difficult, _even_ for the Doctor, and they wanted to review their answers to prepare for a redo.

Missy turned her gaze back to her book and slumped in her chair, making herself smaller.

 **1997:** Three years to the new millennium and the Master’s attempt at stealing the Doctor’s body, and the more Missy thought about it, the more she dissolved into a fit of giggles. Of course, the half-gone bottle of vodka only made things worse, as she would wake in the morning with a raging migraine, but now…

“I’m going to _steal your body,”_ she teased, stretching forward to poke the Doctor square in the chest. She lay atop Jaclyn, her piano, with her legs kicked up behind her, and the Doctor sat on the piano bench, his hands twitching now and then where they lay on the keys.

“You _already did,”_ he replied, his tone equally teasing. “Or---you _tried to._ But… you said you wanted to make music?” He tilted his head, giving her a pointed look. “We’ve yet to--”

She slid off the piano and onto the piano bench, where she nudged him aside and played the opening theme of Pagliacci.

“Oh---no,” with a firm shake of his head, the Doctor took up his electric guitar and played the opening bars of “Bad Case of Loving You.”

She turned towards him and **pouted.** “No. Nuh-uh. I dinnae wan’ t’ play _rock and roll.”_ She turned back to the piano, played a few bars of some jazz tune she’d once danced to in an American Speakeasy, and the Doctor strummed a riff off of that melody.

“Ah!” she cried. “There! Let’s---let’s play off each other, shall we? I’ve some _lovely_ original melodies roaming around in these brains of mine, and they’ve been _dying_ to get out!” Just like the creature in the walls.

His smile melted her hearts.

“You’re on.”

 **2007:** the present. Election week. And Missy now drinks to _forget_ her failures and all the shame that comes with them.

Her magazine quiz is now too blurry to read and her glasses will do nothing to help, not after drinking…. she turns, stretches out a hand, and taps a finger against each of the bottles lining the floor next to her bed, a mixture of raspberry wine and peach vodka. _Six._ Making the wine bottle on her bed---half empty, spilled onto her sheets---her _seventh_ bottle of alcohol that…. day? Evening?

 _Tha’s enough,_ she thinks, biting back a wave of nausea. _In here, away from… from…_

“Ach,” she breathes, and she speaks in soft, Scottish tones, trying to ground herself. “’S alrigh’, jus’… jus’…”

The doors to the Vault creak open and the Doctor steps in, rambling about something as he shuts the doors and steps over the where Missy lays.

“Oh, Missy,” he breathes, rescuing her magazine from the remnants of the wine bottle. “Have you had all of this?”

She turns towards him, narrows her eyes, and says, “mm-aye. ‘s’time for _Harold Saxon,_ and a… a wanted t’ ge’ out m’ head. A feel _sick.”_

He picks up an empty vodka bottle and sniffs. “I’m not surprised, Missy… come with me to the bathroom?”

“A dinnae ken if a can’ walk…”

“Here,” the Doctor says, moving to wrap his arms around her. “I’ll help you.”

While Missy empties her stomach, the Doctor changes her bed sheets, pausing for a moment to inhale the sugary scent of wine and ginger before tossing the lot into a tall hamper. Her comforter, too, gets thrown into the pile as it speaks of wine and ink stains, and he replaces it with a TARDIS blue comforter with plush, purple blankets and an extra pillow, so she can bury her head under it.

“Ahm nae drinkin’ like tha’ again, Doctor,” Missy slurs, slowly making her way out of the bathroom. “A’ feel like a was thrown into a _hurricane_ and tossed into a _black hole…”_

“I’ll be here to help you, Missy, if… if you’ll have me.”

She nods, her eyes shut. “Aye…” she stumbles towards her dresser, opens an eye, and pulls out a plain black shirt and a pair of purple boxers, saying, “are you warm? It’s _much_ too warm in here, and m’ _head…”_

“Its a bit warm, yeah,” he replies, drawing a chair next to her bed. “Just… move slowly. You’re alright, and if you’re _not,_ then **I’m** here…”

Without answering, she slowly peels off her blouse, skirt, and underclothes, replacing them with the far more modern shirt and boxers before crawling under the covers and burying her head beneath the extra pillow. As her drunken state fades and her brains attempt to force their way out through her skull, she remains in bed the rest of the week with the Doctor by her side, both missing out on the week that was Harold Saxon’s term in office.


End file.
